It’s one of those things you strive to do as a vacation, and yet so elusive that few manage. Sailing for a week on a catamaran in Bocas del Toro Panama with four cabins, a captain and a first mate was the pinnacle of relaxation. If it sounds like a dream to you, you’re right.
We flew to Panama with only carry-on and grabbed a puddle-jumper operated by Nature Air into Bocas del Toro. The heat was thick and local kids entertained themselves with checkerboards on their laps in puddle-filled playgrounds. The town was more rustic than Ambergris Caye, Belize, but also more economical and diverse in cuisine. The boat is moored in Red Frog Marina on the island of Bastimentos, and many water taxi operators were jumping at the chance to take us for $10 each.
Tradewinds Cruise Club is an all-inclusive vacation ownership sailing fleet with boats across the globe. RCI members can exchange once every four years to experience the yachts or individuals can purchase weeks within Tradewinds Cruise Club. There is a maintenance fee to be paid yearly to maintain the boats as well as an all-inclusive fee per week for the charters.
Our first time using the boat, we were greeted warmly by the crew and the manager and we happily paid our all-inclusive fee which covered food, drink, snorkelling, scuba diving (for Tradewinds members), housekeeping, mooring fees and water sports.
We boarded Jade, a 42 foot catamaran, and I began to relax. The forward cabins are spacious and each of the four rooms has an ensuite. Our double bed offered storage beneath, and a closet and dresser created ample space for our belongings. Shoes are not needed on the boat, and swimsuits, a sarong and a few light dresses were all that we needed. Clothes can dry on the deck with the clothespins supplied and devices can be charged when the generator is active. Toilet paper cannot be flushed, but water is not an issue like on many boats as Jade is equipped with a water maker that turns seawater to fresh.
Though I had purchased a Panamanian SIM card, my phone didn’t always work on the remote islands. Which marked the first time since starting UrbanMommies in 2006 that I was truly unplugged and ‘forced’ to relax. And it was pure magic.
Dining two nights on shore and swimming to beaches off the boat, land was always close by. I met a monkey friend and savoured the wildlife around me.
Hunting for sloths in the mangrove stands was a hoot, and I was very pleased that the scorpion I met happened to be dead. Note: the smaller and darker the scorpion, the more poisonous it is…
So I read a book while swinging on the hammock on deck. We slept on the trampoline one night. I held a monkey. I bartered in Spanish with a local fisherman who approached our boat in a dugout canoe with lobsters he’d caught free diving. (We purchased enough for the guests and crew for $3 each and the first mate was happy to cook the tails!) We saw a nurse shark while diving and seahorses and squid snorkeling.
We toured Green Acres Organic chocolate farm (whose chocolate was featured on the series Naked Dating, filmed on location) and hiked the jungle rainforest with poison dart frogs at our feet and howler monkeys overhead. I found a stash of sea urchins and coral washed up on a beach and was devastated by the amounts of garbage left on a tiny island by tourists who arrive daily by water taxi to enjoy its beauty. We talked global politics with the others on the boat. Together we represented Argentina, Canada, Mexico and Sweden. Sharing one’s culture and opinions in such a close setting was powerful.
The end of the week was bittersweet. Three gourmet meals had been prepared for us daily and somehow I adjusted to not doing the dishes. Every afternoon brought a new blender drink while we floated on noodles in the ocean.
I’d had a couple of showers, but swimming in seawater multiple times per day allowed me to cross that chore off my list quite frequently. I was more relaxed that I had been in years and I am counting the days until I can get back on a boat – but next time I hope to share the experience with my boys.
There has been a lot of crappy sadness in the news this week, month and year. It’s no secret that our children are directly or indirectly exposed to and aware of life’s most difficult occurrences, and in their true curious nature, they may have questions.
This Moroccan Chicken Couscous is perfect for a school lunch. Served hot or cold, my kids adore every bite.
A kid with a passion for cooking since age two, Step Stool Chef is inspiring kids everywhere who share his love for food. With the motto, “Little guys can do big things too!,” Step Stool Chef has joined the ranks of top chefs, cooks, bloggers and foodies on the step-by-step cooking app SideChef to share his recipes and make cooking fun and easy for cooks of all levels and ages.
Some lies I have told I’m proud of and some I wish I could take back. I’ve never really been the ‘black and white’ person, to the extent where I’d question psychometrists during IQ tests… “But what if the car travelling 50km/hr was using high-octane gas?” “Do I have to count the triangle in 2-D or can I add a dimension?”…
If you’re a baby boomer or part of that X-Y alphabet generation, you probably don’t have a ton of student loans, never lived with your parents ’til you were 40, and only worked ‘for free’ to pad the ol’ resume. If you are a parent of a millennial, on the other hand, you probably realize that those days are gone. There is an unfounded perception that millennials are unskilled and lazy and now, years of unpaid internships are the norm. Housing prices are too high to support with entry-level jobs and university costs continue to rise. And there’s another problem. The gap between entry-level positions and senior executives from the boomer generation who are retiring is a cavernous chasm that you could drive a truck through. In a few years the top decision makers will be embarking on the Grand Tour they never made time for in their 20s, and there will be no junior executives who are able to take their place because anyone with potential has been relegated to the mailroom on an unpaid internship for a few years.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ryan Boyd, the first successful intern in the Next to Succeed program. He explained the perilous job search he faced upon graduating and how many of his classmates are still working retail jobs or earning wages in fields other than what studied. So how did he land the role that is the envy of bright young stars across Canada? His Dad put an article on his bed about the new internship program with Walter Surface Technologies. Open not only to residents of Montreal, it was a well-paying internship with housing included where the employee would learn many facets of the business – from flying on the corporate jet to meet with the board of directors, shadowing executives and working on a high-level project in an area of his schooling. Boyd had been offered a full time entry level marketing position in another company but turned it down to be able to get the exposure and training with Walter Surface Technologies. We experienced close-knit, working relationships with senior management and was offered continued work with the company once the internship was complete. As Boyd says, “You don’t have to limit self to just one department. If you are going to be a CEO you have to understand them all.” To me it sounded like an executive MBA that you’re actually paid for. And also a win-win for the graduate and the business.